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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#151

Post by at_a_remove »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #109
glitchc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any solutions that are in conflict with human nature will never be successful. Ambition and envy are basic human traits. At a deeper level, we are beings that measure everything (including light, sound, smell, touch and taste) by way of comparison. Communism fails because no one has anything left to aspire to and everyone is therefore equally miserable.

This presupposes there is some way to know what human nature is. The best definition I've ever found is "altruistic and cooperative with an in-group, competitive and aggressive towards out-groups". And that doesn't say much at all on this particular point.

The best one I heard, I am pretty sure was from a Stephen Baxter novel, was our tendency to create valuable "caches" of resources.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#153

Post by rsoto2 »

cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

"permits the existence of Jeff Bezos"

- your mind on capitalism.

What things of importance has Bezos done? End world hunger? Or are we celebrating the death of local stores and malls? What about a society that prevents kids from starving instead of making bombs and satellites for world wars?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#154

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

hackererror404 wrote: post #52
dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

Some things cost way more than 10 or 15 million in terms of investment. Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined? Also almost all of super wealthy people's "wealth" is tied up in assets that are funding entire economies. This money is creating jobs, allowing for affordable loans, the money is working for many other people…

>Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined?

Starting land to fund cancer research is fine, but I don't see why we need billionairs for that? Multiple people can fund it. They are going to work alone in that lab either.

>It's not as if the money wealthy people have is just in physical gold coins in their swimming pools.

And it's not as if taxing that wealth makes that fact go away.

What's different is that when all that wealth is concentrated with a few people, they get to decide what research they spend it on and which jobs are created. And that's a bad thing, it's a threath to democracy.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#155

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

tomoyoirl wrote: post #145
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Productive wealth is a good thing You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process. I don't mind if Jeff Bezos the person exists, but I have no reason whatsoever to want him to have control over the scale of resources and decision-making that he does.

> You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process A key advantage of leaving it to the rich is that when rich people fail, they tend to end up losing their wealth and power, hurting mostly themselves — while even a political process that isn’t being corrupted or gamed by someone powerful is badly incentivized t…

This (conveniently) ignores (as do so many similar analyses) the opportunity costs of entering into a labor contract.

When an enterprise fails, it is not just the stockholders and corporate officers who suffer. The employees do too. Worse, only the foolhardy investor puts more than they can afford to lose into a risky investment, meaning that while they have undoubtedly lost money from the failure, they are almost certainly still "whole" in terms of their ability to meet their basic needs. By contrast, the employees, who may have lost no capital, often face much more dire circumstances in the aftermath of a venture failing.

>even a political process that isn’t being corrupted or gamed by someone powerful is badly incentivized to throw good money after bad

It isn't clear to me what you mean by this.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#156

Post by FredPret »

lostlogin wrote: post #104
FredPret wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe you are well-intentioned, but > the masses are not necessarily that sensible is an absolutely toxic sentiment. "We, the smart ones, will decide for them" has led to disaster every time.

That’s not quite what I meant but is exactly what I said. I include myself in the masses. I want smart people to decide things for me. I don’t know how to negotiate trade deals, infrastructure projects and a fleet of other things. Short term leaders and changed objectives mess with progress. I want someone to who understands to make good decisions, and the ability to remove them if they start failing. How that’s best…

A lot of these collective decisions aren't even needed but are simply the consequence of runaway states having to make all sorts calls on behalf of regular people because they've inserted themselves into everyday life in a million different ways.

For the few collective decisions that really do have to be made, regular elections are the only way to keep the decision-makers on their toes.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#157

Post by rsoto2 »

simonh wrote: post #148
laserlight wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Can you expand? What did Bezos contribute to society?

He built a company employing over a million people, created novel goods and services, including services my job depends on (AWS). The wealth of a man like Bezos isn't a pile of gold he wallows in like Scrooge McDuck, it exists in his shareholder control of a vast set of companies full of employees and doing productive work. These companies would not exist without his ability to identify new markets, build efficient c…

Workers created all those things not Jeff Bezos. A lot of the services and technologies leveraged by AWS are created via open source projects for example PostGres.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#158

Post by tsimionescu »

kuratkull wrote: post #78
avgcorrection wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things were created by working people, most of whom are not wealthy.

Look at each valuable item that you use often, now look up the salary of the leader of the company that made it. Edit: You wouldn't have that item without that compensation. This should be more traumatic than people make it out to be. You wouldn't have your iphones, twitters, facebooks, vr goggles, steams, ikea tables, etc.

And yet, all of those examples are critically dependent on huge pieces of infrastructure created and distributed for free by people motivated simply by craftsmanship - Linux, the BSD kernels and many other similar things.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#159

Post by pdonis »

Voultapher wrote: post #110
cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

Wealth, at least the way we measure it, is inextricably tied to modernity. The system you say is a "good thing" is literally speedrunning the destruction of our biosphere. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a system more effective at destroying our world. What many see as prosperity, is irreconcilable with sustainability. I find that's an uncomfortable thought.

> Wealth, at least the way we measure it, is inextricably tied to modernity.

Only in the sense that modernity produces a lot more wealth than any other system humans have come up with.

> What many see as prosperity, is irreconcilable with sustainability.

No, it isn't. What might be is allowing people to accumulate wealth by playing zero sum games, siphoning wealth out of other people's pockets into their own, instead of producing more wealth.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#160

Post by Dalewyn »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #115
Dalewyn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These arguments nearly always come back to the fundamental desire (greed) for "Giev moniez pl0x.", as you say the limit is above their own wealth as to not be an inconvenience to themselves while siphoning monies from those around (and presumably above) them. It would make for better discussion if these social justice warriors were at least honest about what they actually want.

Saying social justice warriors on hacker news is just awesome.

The grandparent comment argues for "businesses [which] are democratic institutions" and a "hard cap" on wealth which will presumably be taken and distributed to people with less wealth, for the goal of "do[ing] substantial good".

Ergo, arguing justice (FSVO justice) for society.

As such, I am of the position that this is one of those rare situations where the term "social justice warrior" is meaningful and accurate.

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